Far From the Madding Crowd

In a remote corner of early Victorian England, where traditional practices remain untouched by time, Bathsheba Everdene stands out as a beacon of female independence and self-reliance. However, when confronted with three suitors, among them the dashing Sergeant Troy, she shows a reckless capriciousness that threatens the stability of the whole community. Published in 1874, and an immediate best seller, Far From the Madding Crowd established Thomas Hardy as one of Britain's foremost novelists.

The Return of the Native

Set on Egdon Heath, a fictional barren moor in Wessex, Eustacia Vye longs for the excitement of city life but is cut off from the world in her grandfather's lonely cottage. Clym Yeobright who has returned to the area to become a schoolmaster seems to offer everything she dreams of: passion, excitement and the opportunity to escape. However, Clym's ambitions are quite different, and marriage only increases Eustacia's destructive restlessness, drawing others into a tangled web of deceit and unhappiness.

Tess of the D'Urbervilles

When John Durbeyfield discovers a family connection to the ancient Norman family, the D'Urbervilles, the fate of daughter Tess is transformed. Sent by her ambitious parents to visit her wealthy D'Urberville cousins, Tess attracts the attention of the unscrupulous Alec. Seduced and discarded by him and alone in the world, she finds work as a milkmaid and the love of Angel Clare. Yet his love cannot accept the truth about Tess's past.

Under the Greenwood Tree

The four seasons of the Wessex year form the backdrop for the delightful romance of Dick Dewy and Fancy Day. The ups and downs of their courtship are set alongside the story of the rustics who form the church choir.

The Woodlanders

Set in the Dorset landscape familiar to Hardy novels, The Woodlanders concerns the fortunes of Giles Winterborne, whose love for the well-do-do Grace Melbury is challenged by the arrival of a dashing and dissolute doctor, Edred Fitzpiers. When the mysterious Mrs Charmond further complicates the romantic entanglements, marital choice and class mobility become inextricably linked.

Tess of the d'Urbervilles (Naxos)

Socially critical and emotionally complex, Tess of the d'Urbervilles is Hardy's masterpiece. It tells the story of Tess Durbeyfield, forced by her family's poverty to claim kinship with the wealthy d'Urbervilles. Violated by the son, Alec, her hopes of rebuilding her life with the gentle and bookish Angel Clare founder when he learns of her past.

Two on a Tower

Two on a Tower is Hardy's ninth novel and contains perhaps his most complete use of the theme of love across the class and age divide, to beautifully depict Hardy's reverence for science and astronomy. The unhappily married Lady Constantine breaks all the rules of social etiquette when she falls in love with young Swithin St. Cleeve, an astronomer and her social inferior. Despite their differences that society deems unacceptable, together, from an astronomical observatory, the lovers 'sweep the heavens'.

The Return of the Native

In the remote wildness of Egdon Heath, the crossed love affairs and marriages of a small group of people are played out against the background of nature’s beauty and indifference to mankind. Through a series of vivid incidents and encounters, The Return of the Native moves in a relentless drive towards tragedy, as the plans and dreams of the lovers miscarry, defeated by chance, or destiny or self-deception. In their unhappy stories, Hardy gives us a powerful dramatization of his bleak philosophy, his belief in man’s helplessness before the malevolence of the universe.

Silas Marner

For 15 years the weaver Silas Marner has plied his loom near the village of Raveloe, alone and unjustly in exile, cut off from faith and human love, he cares only for his hoard of golden guineas. But two events occur that will change his life forever; his gold disappears and a golden-haired baby girl appears. But where did she come from and who really stole the gold? This moving tale sees Silas eventually redeemed and restored to life by the unlikely means of his love for the orphan child Eppie.

Nicholas Nickleby

One of Dickens' early works, Nicholas Nickleby combines comedy and tragedy in a tale of triumph over adversity that is interspersed with Dickens' moving condemnation of society's mistreatment of children and the cruelty of the educational system. Young Nickleby struggles to seek his fortune in Victorian England, yet succeeds despite social injustice, in a story that mirrors Dickens' own rise from poverty to great success.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

The story of a woman's struggle for independence from an abusive husband. Helen 'Graham' has returned to Wildfell Hall in flight from a disastrous marriage and to protect her young son from the influence of his father. Exiled to the desolate moorland mansion, she adopts an assumed name and earns her living as a painter. Gilbert Markham, a local man intrigued by the beautiful young 'widow' offers his friendship but becomes distrustful when her reclusive behaviour sparks rumours and speculation.

A Pair of Blue Eyes

Hardy's third novel, A Pair of Blue Eyes, follows the story of Elfride Swancourt. The daughter of the rector of Endelstow, a sparse, sea-swept parish in Cornwall, Elfride is caught between two suitors of very different backgrounds: Stephen Smith, a young architect restoring the old parish church; and the respectable, older man of London society, Henry Knight. The blue-eyed and high-spirited protagonist must untangle the conflicting messages of her heart and her mind.

Vanity Fair

Set during the time of the Napoleonic Wars, this classic gives a satirical picture of a worldly society. The novel revolves around the exploits of the impoverished but beautiful and devious Becky Sharp who craves wealth and a position in society. Calculating and determined to succeed, she charms, deceives and manipulates everyone she meets. A novel of early 19th-century English society, it takes its title from the place designated as the centre of human corruption in John Bunyan's 17th-century allegory.

The Portrait of a Lady

When Isabel Archer, a beautiful, spirited American, is brought to Europe by her wealthy aunt Touchett, it is expected that she will soon marry. But Isabel, resolved to enjoy the freedom that her fortune has opened up and to determine her own fate, does not hesitate to turn down two eligible suitors, declaring that she will never marry. It is only when she finds herself irresistibly drawn to the cultivated but worthless Gilbert Osmond that she discovers that wealth is a two-edged sword.

The Warden - Chronicles of Barsetshire, Book 1

Loved and appreciated by all with whom he works, Harding lives an ordered, regular life in his protected religious environment. Then one day, a young reformer feels he has uncovered a mismanagement of funds and Harding is held to blame. The accusation comes as a shock not only to Harding himself but also to the cathedral community. It then comes to wider notice when the cause is taken up by a national newspaper.

Howards End

Howards End is the story of the liberal Schlegel sisters and their struggle to come to terms with social class and their German heritage in Edwardian England. Their lives are intertwined with those of the wealthy and pragmatic Wilcox family and their country house, Howards End, as well as the lower-middle-class Basts. When Helen Schlegel and Paul Wilcox's brief romance ends badly the Schlegels hope to never see the Wilcoxes again.

The Woodlanders

The Woodlanders is vintage Hardy. The story revolves around the young woman Grace Melbury, who returns to the leafy world of Little Hintock and soon finds herself at the center of a number of tragic events. In penetrating, incisive and beautiful prose, Hardy tells a moving tale of unrequited love as fate and the constraints of society thwart the happiness of our heroine.

Madame Bovary

Before marrying, Emma Bovary believed she would enter a life of luxury and passion like the sentimental stories she'd read in her novels and magazines. Now married to an ordinary country doctor her life is not the romantic ideal she imagined and seeks an escape through having extra-marital affairs. This devastating spiral into deceit and despair leads to catastrophic consequences. Emma Bovary continues to be enjoyed to this day because of its profound humanity, still as fresh today as when it was first written.

Hard Times

Despite the title, Dickens's portrayal of early industrial society is less relentlessly grim than that in novels by contemporaries such as Elizabeth Gaskell or Charles Kingsley. Hard Times weaves the tale of Thomas Gradgrind, a hard-headed politician who raises his children Louisa and Tom without love and to have no empathy, their lives completely devoid of beauty, culture, or imagination. Only after a series of crises does their father realise that the manner in which he raised his children has ruined their lives.

Cranford

A vivid and affectionate portrait of the residents of an English country town in the mid-19th century, Cranford describes a community dominated by its independent and refined women, relating the adventures of Miss Matty and Miss Deborah, two middle-aged spinster sisters striving to live with dignity in reduced circumstances. Through a series of satirical vignettes, Gaskell sympathetically portrays changing small town customs and values in mid-Victorian England....

The Trumpet-Major

The Napoleonic Wars are at their height, and upheaval and uncertainty plague British soil. In the midst of it all, the impoverished beauty Anne Garland finds herself at the center of a love quadrangle. She is torn between the persistent and annoying Festus Derryman, her womanizing childhood sweetheart Bob Loveday, and the reliable and thoughtful John Loveday, the eponymous Trumpet-Major. Who will she choose?

Wives and Daughters

Molly Gibson, the only daughter of a widowed doctor in the small provincial town of Hollingford, lost her mother when she was a child. Her father remarries wanting to give Molly the woman's presence he feels she lacks. To Molly, any stepmother would have been a shock, but the new Mrs. Gibson is a self-absorbed, petty widow, and Molly's unhappiness is compounded by the realisation that her father has come to regret his second marriage.

Middlemarch

Dorothea Brooke is an ardent idealist who represses her vivacity and intelligence for the cold, theological pedant Casaubon. One man understands her true nature: the artist Will Ladislaw. But how can love triumph against her sense of duty and Casaubon’s mean spirit? Meanwhile, in the little world of Middlemarch, the broader world is mirrored: the world of politics, social change, and reforms, as well as betrayal, greed, blackmail, ambition, and disappointment.

Publisher's Summary

Michael Henchard, drunk at a country fair, sells his wife and baby daughter for five guineas. The following day, in despair and remorse, he forswears alcohol and sets out to redeem himself. In time, he becomes a respected merchant and eventually the mayor of the town. But Fate is not to be so easily appeased, and Henchard finds his past actions resonate through and destroy his plans for the future.

One of the greatest novels in the English language, The Mayor of Casterbridge sees Thomas Hardy at his best, bringing landscape and richly imagined characters to life, and setting the hope of love against the forces of Providence.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.

This was a very pleasant surprise. I have never read Hardy and was expecting a stodgy Victorian sermon. What I got was a powerful, at times overwhelming book. The character of Henchard must be one of the strongest in literature and his fall, rise and fall again is related in a fast moving and sometimes very modern way. The narration of Anton Lesser is as always superb and add's greatly to the enjoyment of this great book. Highly recommended and I will be keen to try more Thomas Hardy.

Anton Lesser brings this classic Hardy tale to life with his intelligent narration and his skilful employment of accent and dialect. A stunning performance. I have played back some of the best passages again and again. As for the story itself, it is a lovely balance of humour and pathos which explores the human condition. Excellent and highly recommended

There's no doubt it , when you listen to something like this, Thomas Hardy was an exceptionally talented writer, his description of henchards character, is so deep and thorough that you can almost feel like you are henchard himself. if you like your books to have a emotional effect on you, as well as having something significant to say about human nature, then you ought to be impressed by this.plus Anton lesser narration is awesome, he really does the book justice.

If Anton Lesser ever gets tired of narrating Dickens, he can always do Thomas Hardy. His reading of this (very) sad book is superb: well-paced, resonant, and brimming with voices. He even manages to get some humor in -- not over Hardy's head or behind his back, just bringing out a quality in some of the dialogue that I totally missed when I first read this book many years ago.

Of course, this being Hardy, nothing works out the way you want for the characters you care about. His main character, Henchard -- the Mayor of the title (or one of them, at any rate) -- is a morally complex man, someone who really wants to do the right thing but is often overtaken by his own passions, coincidence, or bad luck. (At one point near the end of the story, he starts out to do something really nasty, then changes his mind and decides to the right thing, but by sheer accident the nasty thing happens anyway.)

You either like Hardy or you don't. If you like him, you'll probably like Anton Lesser's interpretation as well. I really do hope Lesser takes on a few more of Hardy's books.

9 of 9 people found this review helpful

Bonny

West Brattleboro, VT, United States

03/12/15

Overall

Performance

Story

"Continuing the Hardy Binge, Happily"

Okay, Hardy #2 down, another lovely idyll of beautiful writing and narration. As with Far From the Madding Crowd, this book kept me engaged and engrossed, sort of floating along on the lyrical writing, the interesting plot, and Anton Lesser's narration. This is the portrait of a deeply flawed man, an inherently selfish and boorish businessman and politician (can you say Republican field 2016? There are parallels) who is not without his redemptive qualities. I enjoyed it tremendously. Lesser's narration is marvelous . . . as with the works of Dickens, there is an embarrassment of narrative riches, but you certainly can't go wrong with this one. With the "get the narration for $2.99 when you buy the Kindle book" deal, and the Kindle book costs 99 cents, there really is no excuse for not giving it a try!

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Stacy

Haddonfield, NJ, United States

25/02/12

Overall

Performance

Story

"Delightful Classic"

A very well-narrated version of a compelling classic about a tragically flawed man who turns out to be his own worst enemy at every turn.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

David

Kfar Saba, Israel

10/02/12

Overall

Performance

Story

"Hardy has weathered less well than I expected."

This was one of my favourite books as a young man,and I downloaded it expecting to relish it as I did 30 years ago.Well,although the story still holds the attention,it seems that Hardy and I have grown older.The portrait of English country life and morals in the early 19th century is as interesting and detailed as ever, but the plot is too predictable.The narration is excellent,with the narrator switching easily and convincingly between male and female voices,between characters with rustic,rural accents and those with more sophisticated speech.I still intend to download more of Hardys' books,they are after all,classics.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Amazon Customer

16/03/17

Overall

"Oh Thomas Hardy"

I am amazed at Mr. Hardy's storytelling...another novel of his that I couldn't stop listening too.....the narrator Mr. Lesser was outstanding.....he is my 2nd favorite...first being Tadhg Hynes as far as narrating these great classics....thanks again Mr. Hardy for a great novel and to Anton Lesser making the characters come alive.

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

Reader Book

Texas

09/06/14

Overall

Performance

Story

"Classic Hardy"

What made the experience of listening to Hardy: The Mayor of Casterbridge the most enjoyable?

The reader was excellent. And the story was tight and true to his development of the characters.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Hardy: The Mayor of Casterbridge?

The ending.

What about Anton Lesser’s performance did you like?

Excellent depiction of each character.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Henchard's inevitable return to his beginning.

Any additional comments?

Hardy is not optimistic about human nature or life but quite realistic. So much of his depiction of us human beings still rings true--a classic.

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

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